Celebration of life
Val Fitzpatrick has been described as “an expressionist painter”, her love of texture fuelled by an intense interest in ancient history and mythology found form in many mixed media styles, from the use of fabric fibre applied hand coloured paper to sculptured relief.
When she died late last year she had an application in for an exhibition at Strathnairn Arts, where she was one of the gallerys most long-standing and dedicated members.
Strathnairn Arts director Peter Haynes contacted Vals husband Ted and offered to curate an exhibition of her work as a celebration of her life. The family accepted the offer and Vibrancy officially opens on May 5. It runs until May 27.
Elizabeth McCrystal, Throwaway Society, 2018, Giclée print.
Photo: Supplied
Reflections on society
Exploring the fundamental and insidious traits of our throwaway society, (Im) Wrapped (Up) In You playfully questions the interplay between consumerism, overconsumption, socioeconomic divisions and beauty standards.
Elizabeth McCrystals exhibition at PhotoAccess looks at the way society currently consumes products and precious commodities, by deciphering existing trends around fresh food, plastic packaging and online socialising. The results are mixed media artworks that repackage these trends in honest and absurd ways, while highlighting our lifestyles of convenience and compliance.
Also at PhotoAccess is Synergies, a collaboration from artists Beverley Southcott, Will Nolan and Jenn Brazier, which investigates the in-between spaces that reside beneath our tangible reality. The works reconfigure the real or non-real in an attempt to restore equilibrium to the superabundance that invariably surrounds us.
Both exhibitions open on May 3 and run until May 27, at PhotoAccess, Griffith.
Dance Week
Celebrate Ausdance ACT Dance Week 2018 with professional dance artists, and take a journey with them as they explore and create new works especially commissioned by Belconnen Arts Centre. Be ready for the memorable, the mesmerising and the mischievous – their imaginations have no boundaries!
Dance on the Edge promises to be a wild and whimsical feast for your senses, exploring a very diverse range of ideas, including Venus, goddess of love, sex and pleasure; having a stroke and coming out the other side; and issues about how we use and abuse energy in our world.
Artists involved include Alana Stenning, Australian Dance Party, Debora di Centa and Louise Curham, Gretel Burgess, and Jamie Winbank and colleagues.
The ACT is home to a diverse, creative and passionate dance community, and while small in number, they are big in their vision and practice. Many of them work locally, nationally and internationally.
There will be sessions on Saturday, May 5 at 5pm and 8pm and Sunday, May 6 at 2pm. After the late Saturday show and on Sunday there will be a free session where the audience can meet the dancers and gain further insight into their works.
Christina Cordero, Passing by, mixed media, unique state, detail.
Photo: Supplied
Magic of the mythic
Chilean born printmaker Christina Corderos imagery arises from a deeply personal realm. Her work is based on thoughts, feelings and dreams that emerge from the experience of living for more than 50 years “in between” cultures.
"It has been a floating world,” she says, “enriching, liberating and sometimes lonely, driving me to connect with intensity to my work, the images and the stories.”
She draws us into her world and takes us on a playful journey through her imagination: the real and the surreal mixed with music, fantasy, stories and poems from the heart and the soul.
Melodic Monologues, works on paper, is on show at Beaver Galleries until May 20.
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Karen Hardy is a reporter at The Canberra Times.
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